Officer Charged In Sex Solicitation Of Girl Dies

September 25, 2001|By Ardy Friedberg Staff Writer

A Fort Lauderdale police officer, arrested three months ago on charges of soliciting a 14-year-old girl over the Internet, died early Sunday morning of apparent heart failure, according to his attorney.

Byron Matthai, 53, a 25-year veteran of the Fort Lauderdale Police Department who lived in Davie, did not respond to his wife's attempt to wake him about 3 a.m., attorney Mike Dutko said. She called paramedics, who took Matthai to Cleveland Clinic in Weston, where he was pronounced dead.

The Broward Medical Examiner's Office said on Monday that the cause of Matthai's death was still undetermined.

Matthai had been treated for anxiety and stress since his arrest on June 21 by St. Lucie County Sheriff's deputies. His trial was set for November.

"The ordeal has taken its toll physically and emotionally," Dutko said.

Matthai was charged with four counts of promoting a sexual act by a child and one count of computer child exploitation. He was arrested after making contact in April with a detective posing as a teenage girl in an America Online chat room, police said.

For two months before his arrest, Matthai traded e-mail with St. Lucie Sheriff's Detective Neil Spector, telling the veteran sex crimes detective that his name was Paul, according to the arrest report. In the e-mails, Matthai asked Spector when they could meet. Spector used a female deputy to pose as the 14-year-old girl when Matthai called.

A meeting was finally set up at a McDonald's in St. Lucie. When Matthai showed up in his Lincoln Navigator, deputies moved in.

Matthai was suspended from his job and the police department had opened its own investigation of the incident.

Ardy Friedberg can be reached at afriedberg@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4843.